Abstract

Most contemporary philosophers are physicalists. They believe that, in a relevant sense, everything (including tables, clouds, cars, the universe and even our sensations) is ultimately physical. Recently, mainly because of David J. Chalmers' influential work on phenomenal consciousness (Chalmers 1996), some philosophers have started to take property dualism more seriously (the thesis that the mental and the physical are two fundamentally distinct kinds of property). They think that while there are a number of strong arguments for physicalism, the physical sciences might not be able to account for everything in the world. However, very few contemporary philosophers take substance dualism seriously (the thesis that the mental--what Swinburne calls the soul--and the physical are two distinct kinds of substance that interact with each other).